FORT WORTH, Texas - Fort Worth will have a new mayor for the first time in a decade as voters Saturday were choosing a successor to Betsy Price, the only Republican mayor of Texas' big cities.
The winner is set to take over a rapidly changing Fort Worth. The city has grown to nearly 1 million residents, and Democrats have made fast inroads in surrounding Tarrant County, one of the GOP's biggest strongholds in Texas.
Ten candidates are in the running, making a runoff likely.
Although the race is officially nonpartisan, the crowded field includes Tarrant County Democratic Party Chairwoman Deborah Peoples, who lost to Price in 2019. If elected, she would become Fort Worth's first Black mayor.
Other contenders include Mattie Parker, Price's former chief of staff, and two city council members, Bryan Byrd and Ann Zadeh.
Price was first elected in 2011 and is Fort Worth's longest-serving mayor. Her city was shaken in 2019 by the police shooting of Atatiana Jefferson, a Black woman killed when an officer fired a gunshot through a window of her mother's home.